The present invention generally relates to a method and apparatus for curing photosensitive materials, and more particularly to a method and apparatus for intensifying and routing light, such as ultra-violet light, generated by light emitting diodes for the purpose of curing photosensitive materials.
One typical environment where photosensitive curing technology is encountered is in the curing of ultra-violet (UV) photosensitive materials during the manufacture of electronic components. The photocuring systems found in such environments typically use mercury-arc lamps to flood the UV sensitive material with UV light. While mercury-arc lamp technology is widely used, such technology has several disadvantages. The most obvious disadvantage is the life span of the mercury bulbs used in the mercury-arc lamps. Mercury bulbs have a relatively short life, typically 100-1000 hours. Further, the mercury bulb degrades nonlinearly during its lifetime. As a result, conventional mercury-arc photocuring systems often require means to monitor and adjust the output power as the mercury bulb degrades. Further, mercury-arc lamps are typically powered on even during stand-by periods because they require cumbersome warm-up and cool-down cycles; as a result, much of the life of the mercury bulbs may be lost during these stand-by periods. Another disadvantage involves the broad spectrum of the light radiated by the mercury-arc lamp. A mercury-arc lamp radiates UV and infra-red (IR) light. Typically, UV band pass filters transmit the portion of the UV spectrum required for curing a particular photosensitive material. In addition, heat-rejecting IR filters are usually employed to prevent heating of the cure surface. Because the IR radiation creates a very hot lamp housing, transmission optics proximate to the lamp housing must be made of temperature resistant, UV-transmissive materials.
The introduction of UV light emitting diodes (LEDs) has created new alternatives for curing some UV sensitive materials. LED technology offers several advantages over the traditional mercury-arc technology. First, typical LEDs last between 50,000 to 100,000 hours, providing a significant lifespan improvement over mercury-arc technologies. Second, UV LEDs do not emit significant IR radiation, so heat-rejecting IR filtration is not required. As an added benefit, the reduced heat generation allows the use of economical UV transmitting polymers for lenses.
LED sources can also be turned on and off as required because LEDs do not require the warm-up and cool-down periods common in mercury-arc lamp systems. Some LED curing systems may implement driver circuits to control the current supplied to the LEDs. These circuits typically use a closed-loop system to monitor and control the output power of the LEDs, by controlling the drive current, to provide a stable and reliable UV source. These circuits may also define different curing cycles for different photosensitive materials, such as emitting a specific output power for a specific length of time.
Unfortunately, conventional LED sources and LED systems have relatively low output power compared to traditional mercury-arc lamps. While the lower output power LED photocuring systems have proven to be sufficient for some dental applications, many commercial and industrial UV sensitive materials require higher output powers, such as 0.5 to 3 J/cm2, to cure properly. For example, some UV sensitive materials require between 100 to 600 mW/cm2 of optical intensity to initiate and complete a five second cure. Historically, these intensities have not been achieved with LED-based curing systems.
U.S. Patent Application Publication 2001/0046652 to Ostler, et al., entitled “Light Emitting Diode Light Source for Curing Dental Composites,” describes use of UV LEDs for curing of dental composites. The Ostler device increases the output intensity of UV light generated by an array of relatively low-power LEDs by concentrating collimated light generated by the array to a desired spot size at a desired location. While the Ostler system increases the output intensity of a UV curing system, the Ostler approach has several disadvantages. First, the Ostler LED array comprises a fixed array of LED chips and therefore does not allow replacement of individual LED units within the array. As a result, new entire units must be purchased to change the wavelength of the emitted optical power, or to replace one or more damaged or defective LEDs. Second, the Ostler cooling system is both complicated and likely insufficient for cooling the higher power UV LEDs now available on the market. Lastly, the Ostler publication does not discuss any methods or apparatus for capturing and redirecting any stray UV light to further intensify the output light at the desired location.
Therefore, there remains a need for high intensity LED-based curing systems that addresses one or more problems outlined above.